


so are you going to keep it?

by JenTheSweetie



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 13:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14262033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenTheSweetie/pseuds/JenTheSweetie
Summary: "It's been two years and you want to talk about mybeard?"Steve's back in town.  Tony has some thoughts.





	so are you going to keep it?

**Author's Note:**

> This is in some ways a sequel to "Who's Scruffy Looking", but no knowledge of that fic is required; it's really more of a spiritual successor. Thanks to Snapjack for the inspiration, as always.

"Oh," Tony said, "that's new."

"What's new?" Steve said.

"The whole, you know," Tony said, gesturing to his own face.  "Man of the woods thing."

Steve raised his eyebrows.  "Excuse me?"

"I honestly wasn't sure if you even _could_  grow one," Tony said.  "Your face was always so _smooth_ , I thought maybe the Vita rays messed with your testosterone or whatever - "

"I would've thought you had plenty of evidence that my _testosterone or whatever_  is just fine," Steve said dryly.  "Also, it's been two years and you want to talk about my _beard_?"

"It makes a statement," Tony said.  "I'm not sure what the statement is quite yet, though.  Is it supposed to be a disguise?  Because I gotta say, you didn't fool me for a second."

"It's not supposed to be a disguise," Steve said.  "It grew in and for the first time in my life I didn't shave it off.  That's the whole story.  You now know as much about this beard as I do.  Happy?"

"Not really," Tony said.  "You know it wasn't about the all-American poster boy thing for me, so that's not where my objection is coming from, and believe me, nobody understands experiments like I do, but sometimes you check a hypothesis and the result's not what you thought it would be, and I think we can safely conclude that this, this is one of those times.  What I'm saying is that I don't love it."

"Duly noted," Steve said.  "Can we talk about Thanos now?"

"Yes," Tony said, "definitely, we can talk about Thanos now, it's just, are you going to keep it?"

"Tony," Steve said.

"Because you're back now - I think you're back, at least, I _hope_  you're back, and so maybe when we start talking about all the stuff we have to talk about, we can add the beard to the list?" 

"I almost forgot how exhausting you are," Steve said.

"Does Wilson like it?" Tony mused.  "Sam's got style and you know it.  You listen to him!  You listened to him even though you never listened to me when I tried to get you out of those old man pants - well, I mean, I got you _out_  of them, but then you always got back _into_  them afterwards, no matter how many of them I destroyed two more always seemed to come back, they're worse than Hydra, I swear - "

"Sam called it a breakup beard," Steve admitted.  

"Sam!  I love Sam," Tony said.  "Sam's great, can I get Sam on my side next time?"

"Next time?" Steve said.  "Tony, can we _please_  get back to - "

"Can I kiss you?" Tony said.  "I know we have about a million fights in front of us and, for the record, I'm definitely still pretty mad at you - "

"I'm still pretty mad at you too, if you were interested," Steve said.

" - but now that you're out of hiding and here right in front of me and the world's about to end and everything, I feel like we can probably work it all out and I really, really want to kiss you right now," Tony said.  "Not just because of the beard.  Though the beard is a _factor_ , if I'm being honest, because I'm really curious, is it _soft_ , or - "

"Get over here," Steve said, and did one of the only things he'd ever found could effectively shut Tony Stark the fuck up.

Eventually Tony pulled away, presumably because he was constitutionally incapable of having an opinion and not sharing it. "I'm still not convinced the beard is a good idea, _but_  I do have some ideas for additional - _experiments_  - that might be able to help clear it up."

"We really have to talk about Thanos," Steve said, pressing his forehead to Tony's.

"Thanos can wait until morning," Tony said.  

"I'm honestly not sure he can," Steve said, but he let Tony take him by the hand.


End file.
